In my opinion (making no claims as to scientific fact) we need a diverse range of sources of power to give us flexibility in what seems to me a very uncertain future. I would agree that nuclear power should be a part of this as well as renewable sources such as wind, hydro and tidal power. Opponents of wind power suggest that it can only form a very small percentage of our supply because the wind does not always blow. However they underestimate the contribution it can make suggesting it could never contribute more than 10%. Yet Denmark already generates over 30% of its power from wind according to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Denmark.
The real reasons for their opposition seems to be that they don't like the look of them, and somthing about the noise of which I can find no justification (though I am open to more information on this). The conservative leader of Lincolnshire County Council recently suggested some criteria that would have excluded them from anywhere in Lincolnshire. If such provisions were brought in then I would suggest that they should find a site for a nuclear power station in the county or vote to cut themselves off from the national grid!
The total number of power stations decommissioned by Denmark because of their building of thousands of wind turbines is.... (drum roll)...... zero. Denmark has the highest-priced electricity in Europe - not a scientific fact, but a financial one. See this
website for details. Others are available, they all say the same thing. Denmark has a network of combined heat and power stations, which have served it well. The windfarms produce power with great variability, so the CHPs have to be fired up and ready for when the wind drops. When the windfarms produce too much power, Denmark give their excess free to Norway and Sweden. When the wind falls, they buy it back at a price. In Britain, we pay the wind companies to switch the machines off when they produce too much. Norway is powered almost entirely (99%) by hydro plants, which can be switched on and off almost instantly. Sweden is a 50/50 mix of hydro and nuclear. Both have a very small wind sector.
The
Atlantic Array will, if it is ever built, wreck the fishing grounds. Additionally, visitors to Lundy, Ilfracombe, the Gower peninsula and other lovely places will have to watch electricity being generated instead of the peaceful seascape they currently enjoy. Even if it works as well as RWE nPower say, and no windfarm has ever come close to matching the claims of the promoters, it will generate less than Hinkley C. That will spoil the (already spoiled) view for a lot fewer people.
Starting a nuclear plant from cold takes several weeks. Starting a coal-fired plant takes several days. Gas-powered plants, like Seabank in Avonmouth, react quickly to demand. Wind power cannot be regulated or demanded. Our ideal, carbon-lite mix would see nuclear providing the "base load" - what we need when everyone is in bed. Nuclear is at its most efficient when it is switched on 24 hours every day. Bio methane powered plants would take up the next tranche, with natural gas for the rest. Whilst I do not like to agree with Btline, wind power should be consigned to the recycling box of history, now. That one by the M4, the only one Londoners ever really see, produced ^100,000 electricity and ^140,000 in subsidies last year, according to the Torygraph. Because of the time lag, conventional power stations with an equivalent power to that produced by wind have to be on standby, so that the man in the national grid whose job is to watch TV, and add in units when needed because Eastenders has finished, can simply push a button. I don't know why, but the frequency of 50 Hz is the thing that matters most, and he reacts to that. This means we have coal-fired stations running on standby, or "spinning reserve" to use the jargon, using almost as much coal and producing nearly as much CO2 as they would if they were producing electric. It isn't like cycling to work, it's more like cycling to work, but having someone follow you in the car in case you get tired.
The billions we are spending on wind lunacy would be better spent on things like LED light bulbs. I swapped my 50W spotlights for 4W LEDs, and cut my electricity use for lighting my kitchen from 400W to 32W. Magnetic induction hobs would also cut consumption on a significant scale. The big problem with wind is that it provides power companies with an incentive to sell us power that does not have a vast running cost once built, with a guaranteed return over 25 years. The big windmills are noisy. I gave evidence at a public inquiry into a wind farm, the first time in my 56 years that I have ever objected to a planning proposal. This is for 9 300 ft turbines between Exmoor, which I love, and Dartmoor, which I really like, and somewhere I would not be given permission to build a bungalow if I asked. Someone who lives close to Fullabrook windfarm also spoke, telling the inspector how he doesn't notice during the day, but at night when all is quiet, it sounds like having 22 concrete mixers running close by. On some bright sunny days, he has to close the curtains and switch the lights on because of the shadows of the blades.
There is also the matter of pollution to consider. A typical 3 MW wind turbine contains 2 tonnes of Neodymium, a rare earth metal, in the permanent magnets of the generator. Conventional power stations use copper coils.
This article, admittedly from the Daily Mail, so not really trustworthy, shows that we are not producing pollution-free electricity, we are exporting the pollution to countries like China, where dissent is dealt with in ways we might find harsh.
IMHO▸ , the biggest problem we have with wind power is that it diverts resources from finding long-term solutions to the quick political fix. This is nothing new; when the Queen (God bless her) flicked the switch to turn on the supply at Calder Hall in 1956, we knew it would not last forever. We built many more plants, each with a known lifespan, yet we did not plan for the future, because our governments last for only a maximum of 5 years, and don't like to upset anybody in the last 3 of those years. Commissioning, planning, and building a nuclear plant takes longer than that. Wind farms are a quick fix, because they supply guilt-free electricity for politicians in London to make capital out of, lobbied by mainly foreign companies since we privatised our power, but are built in far-flung places inhabited by people who don't really matter.
Thorium power could be the next game-changer. Thorium is not very radioactive, and has a short half-life. It will never go "critical", because of this. It needs a small amount of plutonium to fire it up. It is of no use to terrorists or rogue states. It is abundant, several hundreds of times more so than the uranium fuelling today's reactors. It is embarrassing, but India may be the country that cracks the puzzle, and we may be importing technology from a country we were giving aid to as recently as 2010.
Until about 1973, power was cheap in the
UK▸ . It isn't now, but we haven't adjusted to the new reality yet. In the future, our heating, cooking, and motive power will be electricity. We can never rely on wind, and it is about time the powers that be admitted this inconvenient truth.
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